Contactless payments to arrive on London's Tube in September

25 July 2014 | 8340 views | 1

Londoners will soon be able to pay for journeys on the tube, DLR and overground with their contactless bank cards and mobile phones.

Following a 3000 person-strong pilot, from 16 September all travellers will have the option of tapping their contactless AmEx, MasterCard or Visa credit, debit and prepaid cards at stations. They can also still use Oyster cards.

In addition, EE customers will be able to pay with their NFC-enabled Android handsets through the telco's Cash on Tap app.

A daily capping system will ensure that people making multiple journeys will not pay more than the cost of a Day Travelcard, while a Monday-to-Sunday cap also promises to calculate the best value for users. Only one charge per day will be sent to banks and registered customer will be able to view their journey and payment history via TfL online.

Contactless payments have been accepted on London's buses since December 2012 and have been used by around 825,000 travellers for 17 million journeys.

Shashi Verma, director, customer experience, TfL, says: "Offering the option of contactless payments will make it easier and more convenient for customers to pay for their travel, freeing them of the need to top up Oyster credit and helping them get on board without delay."

The move is a boon for card schemes. Visa Europe's Sandra Alzetta, says: "I predict that paying for public transport will become so convenient and frictionless that in the first week of launch, we'll see about 1 million Visa contactless journeys on TfL's network."